If Rick Perry gets the GOP nomination, he'll be the first pedal-to-the-metal climate change denier to occupy the Oval Office (although Bush 43 might as well have been one.) In going off on the subject in New Hamphire today, the wild-eyed Texas guy did manage to say something I agree with, though:

In his stump speech, Perry referenced "a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects."

The world's largest oil company is continuing to fund lobby groups that question the reality of global warming, despite a public pledge to cut support for such climate change denial, a new analysis shows.

Company records show that ExxonMobil handed over hundreds of thousands of pounds to such lobby groups in 2008. These include the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) in Dallas, Texas, which received $75,000 (£45,500), and the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, which received $50,000.

According to Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the London School of Economics, both the NCPA and the Heritage Foundation have published "misleading and inaccurate information about climate change."

Now Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat who served as chairman of the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce and co-sponsored the bill, is demanding answers on whether the scientist misled the committee on the sources of his financing.

Along with his written testimony for the 2009 hearing, Dr. Michaels submitted to Congress a document detailing roughly $4.2 million in funds he has received for his scientific work. Only 3 percent of the funding listed came from energy-sector sources.

After the hearing, Representative Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont — citing reports that Dr. Michaels had received substantial funds from the coal, oil and gas industry — questioned him on the record about what he received from the energy sector, but he declined to amend his statements.